deepest distress, that their desponding hearts were cheered by the suggestions of some angel-spirit, that beyond the waste of waters which had confined the human race to the old continent, to suffer all that humanity could endure, or tyrants inflict, there was another and a better world. The followers and companions of Du Plessis and Coligny in France; of Barnevelt and Grotius in Holland; of Hampden and Milton in England, all looked to America as an asylum.

It was from this class-this dissenting-persecuted minority, that the ancestors of the American people were drawn; and it was owing to the universality of this feeling among them, that the tide of emigration swelled so rapidly when it began to flow. Whilst the eastern colonies were settled by the English Puritans, the adjacent provinces offered a similar shelter to the Hugenots, and the Dutch and German Reformers. This description of population gave a sobriety of purpose and a religious character to the whole colonies, and prevented the southern settlements from degenerating into mere trading establishments.

It also enforced the necessity of a tolerating spirit. Our English ancestors were not only Protestants in religion, but they were Dissenters from the political faith of their countrymen. In their struggles against the religious supremacy of the crown, they often questioned its temporal authority. They felt a yearning for the dawn of that day of civil freedom, which their descendants now enjoy. They were in fact the vanguard of that stern, austere band of Presbyterians, who in the next generation established the commonwealth upon the ruins of the monarchy, and brought their misguided sovereign to the scaffold for offences against the people of England. They had not, it is true, such well-grounded ideas of civil freedom, as are now prevalent. They were not born under a written constitution; nor had they grown up under a free and well-balanced government; but they had been taught the value of freedom in the school of persecution. The cruel tyranny which had driven them from their own country; the hardships and privations they had undergone in establishing themselves here, were all so many testimonials against an arbitrary government, and unanswerable proofs in favour of the rights of man.

In the lapse of a few years, the feelings which were naturally entertained against the particular sects, by whom the first settlers had been exiled, were modified. Succeeding generations became heirs only to the strong dislike against tyranny in general; and the want of rich religious endowments, by depriving theological teachers of all temporal motives to persecution, took away the chief cause of religious intolerance. Accordingly, when the mother country undertook to straighten the bonds of government and to reduce the colonies to unconditional submission, we find them overlooking minor points of difference, in order to preserve their political freedom. The Catholics of Maryland, the Episcopalians of New-York and Virginia, the Hugenots of Carolina, and the descendants of the German and Dutch reformers, who were planted in several parts of the Union, joined with the Puritans of New-England in opposing the usurpations of Great Britain. They all felt that unless their resistance was successful, both civil and religious freedom would be at the discretion of the British ministry, and, in the presence of the common foe, they buried their theological differences. As they had purchased their religious freedom by relinquishing their homes and kindred, they now made a sacrifice of sectarian prejudices upon the shrine of civil liberty and national independence, and religious toleration was thus made the key-stone of the American Union. But though it is a fortunate circumstance that the dissenters of other nations made settlements in this country, there is no reason to regret that the chief provinces, which materially influenced the character of the whole, were settled by English non-conformists.

The country from which they came, though far from furnishing a perfect model for a free government, was infinitely superior in that particular to any then existing in Europe; and from its arbitrary features and the despotic principles of its ruling monarch, this sect had uniformly dissented. It is not, however, by their partiality for free institutions alone, that the English Puritans were peculiarly fitted to become the founders of a great nation. The qualities and principles which distinguished this extraordinary sect are well worthy of a chief place among

the circumstances which formed the character and controlled the destiny of the American people. The Puritans not only rejected the creed of the Catholic Church, but they had separated from the Protestant Church, because in their judgment it was still tainted with Romish superstitions. They aimed at a more thorough reformation, and to bring their chosen flock back to the primitive simplicity of the apostolic age. Their system of faith was one of self-denial, humiliation and prayer. It rendered every passion subservient to a vehement desire of knowing and executing the will of Providence. All temporal motives, ambition, avarice, self-love, all were swallowed up in this one absorbing feeling. Earthly riches they regarded as dross. Their hearts were fixed on that spiritual wealth, which the meanest member of the congregation claimed as his inheriHuman honours they despised, as transitory and dependent upon the breath of man. They were heirs to immortal crowns, and celestial thrones and eternal honours awaited them, when they were released from the bonds of flesh. For this they relinquished all those objects which the mass of mankind pursue with such ardour, and became the tenants of a prison, the victims of the Star-Chamber, and the subjects of persecution and exile.

tance.

Dangers could not deter such men; for death they welcomed as a translation to the realms of bliss. Titles and honours could not seduce; for their imaginations were beyond the reach of temporal motives. In their paroxysms of religious enthusiasm, in their gloomy fits of humiliation and despair, they seemed subjects for pity and commiseration; but when these mental clouds had passed, they came to the business of life with an intensity of purpose, and a thorough devotion of every physical and mental faculty, which triumphed over difficulty and trampled every obstacle under foot. This state of religious exaltation proved an admirable support in all parts of their trying career. It enabled them to continue their course with unfaltering step, when men under the influence of ordinary motives would have turned back in despair. It sustained them in their cruel persecution at home; in the solemn moment of parting from their

native land; in their long and dangerous voyage on the Atlantic; in their many trials in the American wilderness; and in the gloomy hour when the storm of ministerial wrath, which had been so long gathering, burst on their defenceless settlements. In all these trials they acted like men whose destinies were under the special superintendence of an overruling Providence. The claims of their friends and kindred were in vain presented to their minds. Their hearts yearned towards those objects of affection and the pleasant places of their childhood; but religious duty forbade them to submit to the commands of an arbitrary government, and they turned their backs upon their native country, with a fixed determination never to return.

A stormy ocean in vain arrayed itself in unusual terrors. Their little bark was laden with a greater burden than Cæsar and his fortunes. It bore the founders of a mighty republic. In their own estimation, it contained the chosen church, and they felt as if under the special protection of heaven. The ocean, which presented such obstacles to their escape, would preserve them from the corruptions of the old world. It placed them beyond the influence of countries grown old in abuses. A bleak and barren shore awaited them upon their arrival; but there they were free from ecclesiastical persecution and political tyranny. They were freed from the mischievous example of institutions vicious in principle, and were at liberty to establish a social community, whose members were far advanced in civilization upon a broad and natural basis.

With these views, upon their landing, they entered into a social written compact, the first the world ever saw, by which it was agreed, that the common will should be the law of the colony. They then chose a governor from among themselves, and established their republican government far from the debasing influence of Europe, without the sanction of a charter or grant under any royal seal, in the midst of the untouched forest, with the canopy of heaven for a covering, and the waves of the Atlantic rolling between them and the abodes of civilized man. Under such circumstances was the first English colony planted, which possessed the power of sustaining itself; and to the hard

ships which its founders endured, and to the principles by which they were actuated, may be attributed the fearless and uncompromising spirit of the colonists. They were always prompt to oppose the pretensions of England, and when force was resorted to, they were found as ready to play their part in the field as in the halls of debate.

Another circumstance growing out of the religious feelings, which entered so largely into the inducement to American colonization, had an important influence upon the institutions of the new colony. Its founders were surrounded by their families, and among the moral causes which contributed to its stability and prosperity, we cannot assign too high a rank to the example of those devoted women, who left the comforts to which they had been accustomed for the sake of their persecuted friends, and to sustain and cheer them amid their dangers and privations. It was no inconsiderable cause of the success of this settlement, that it was established upon the permanent foundation of domestic happiness; and that its founders felt, as husbands and fathers, solicitous for the moral and religious education of the rising generation. Their views extended to posterity. They were religious and educated themselves, and they intended that their descendants should be so too. Actuated by these motives, they made provision, shortly after their landing, for teaching the gospel and for the education of the children in the colony. The noble system of common schools, to which the eastern states are indebted for no small share of their reputation and happiness, and which is so fast spreading through the country, dispelling ignorance and preparing the rising generation for the proper administration of our excellent institutions, is a lasting monument of their wisdom, and will long remind their countrymen of the sagacity of the fathers of New-England.

These remarks, illustrating the forecast of the eastern colonists, are equally applicable to the manner in which the founders of the British colonies, in general, framed their political institutions. It is true, that in some of the provinces they were induced by different motives to migrate to this continent; but they all considered these wilds as their permanent homes.